Smithfield Markets

The new market halls for Birmingham city, designed by David Kohn Architects in collaboration with artist-run multiverse Eastside Projects, received unanimous approval by the City Council’s Planning Committee in June 2024. This approval followed modifications to the original planning application submitted in early 2023, which addressed heritage concerns regarding the archaeological remains on the site.

Part of the £1.9 billion masterplan being delivered by Birmingham City Council in partnership with Lendlease, the market halls will form the centrepiece of a new mixed-use quarter.

The project was won through an open international design competition in 2019 and incorporates a fish & meat market hall, a food hall, retail, restaurants, an event space and a rooftop garden designed by Todd Longstaffe-Gowan.

The building has been thought of as a piece of city in its own right, incorporating thoroughfares and public spaces for gathering and performance throughout. The New Smithfield Market is at the centre of the city, a portal into heritage and the future, where market traders and performers, locals and tourists, entrepreneurs and artists come together to sell, buy, create, feast, innovate, play, celebrate and watch the action unfold.

Our approach aims to amplify the area’s existing cultural and social ecology by creating a new place embedded in the heritages and cultures of the existing markets, enhancing the everyday life of both locals and visitors through encounters with an artist engineered building that integrates contemporary art and cultural activities, to make a globally recognised destination in the city.

The design was developed in collaboration with masterplanners Prior + Partners and in close consultation with the existing local market traders, and incorporates a number of major artworks by artists Gavin Wade, Celine Condorelli, Samara Scott, Harold Offeh, Gary Zhexi Zhang, Nicola Singh and Sarah Taylor Silverwood with signage by Mark El-khatib.